Enthusiasm

The problem of evil is not only a logical problem about God’s goodness but also an existential problem about the sense of God’s presence, which the Biblical book of Job conceives as a problem of aesthetic experience. Thus, just as theism can be grounded in religious experience, atheism can be grounded in experience of evil. This phenomenon is illustrated by two contrasting literary descriptions of aesthetic experience by Jean-Paul Sartre and Annie Dillard. I illuminate both of these literary texts with a discussion of the 18th Century philosopher Lord Shaftesbury’s concept of ‘enthusiasm’.

The word enthusiasm is derived from the Greek ἐνθουσιασμός/enthousiasmos and has a meaning of being possessed by a god (ἔνθεος/entheos) referring to θειασμός/theiasmos, ‘inspiration’.  The person who is possessed by a god surpasses their normal state of being and ascends to a higher plane or ἔκστασις/ekstasis. This state of being is caused by breathing in vapours, drinking elixirs, or by frantic dancing, through which the gods enter the body. During the Homeric Age in Greece, enthousiasmos was connected to ecstatic prophecies and rituals, such as the Pythia, the Dionysian bacchanals, the dances of the Maenads. In the post-Homeric Age, Plato (ca. 427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) shifted the meaning of enthousiasmos towards the artistic inspiration of poets.
Even today, we use ‘enthusiasm’ to describe a special energy that can suddenly overwhelm us: an affect of rapture that radiates out towards the audience. Yet, through the ages, the concept has not always carried with it the positive connotations of the ancient Greeks. Along the way, enthusiasm and rapture became contaminated with (religious) fanaticism and even with manipulative deceit.
In his book Philosophie und Enthusiasmus, Bernd Bösel asks why we so often view enthusiasm as a suspicious affect in the modern-day intellectual context.  He thinks the reason is found in the Zweikampf between enthusiasm and melancholy on the one hand, and enthusiasm and reason on the other.  According to the author, the first conflict is situated on the vertical scheme of the mood, which holds the extremes of highs and lows, as with the pathological diagnoses of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and even psychosis.  The second conflict polarises enthusiasm with reason, making enthusiasm an emotion that hinders rational thought.  In both positions, enthusiasm is not seen as part of a reliable epistemology. These splits gradually started to develop from the 17th century on, although enthousiasmos was revalued during the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era as a positive stimulant of creativity and Ideenflucht. 
Despite a few flickers on the cultural historical time line, enthusiasm has mostly been marginalised in modern Western philosophy: as an excessive urge, or as a harmful exaggeration of emotions that leads to madness. Bösel calls for rehabilitation of enthousiasmos as a knowledge paradigm that shouldn’t be seen as the opposite of melancholy genius, nor as Besonnenheit, but as something which deserves an intrinsic place in the cultural sciences: in the Zwischenreich des Begehrens und Fühlen.
The rehabilitation of enthousiasmos as a criticised affect of the mind also interests me from an iconological standpoint. Is enthousiasmos the subject of any iconographic traditions? Is enthousiasmos an aesthetic concept within the art historical method? Can enthousiasmos be a part of a visual epistemology? I will discuss these questions in three chapters: a case on Pentecost in Christian iconography; an analysis of the Pygmalion myth within the 18th-century sparks of creative passion, and a new interpretation of Aby Warburg’s (1866-1929) Pathosformel as a variant of the entheos paradigm.
And finally: Anne-Louise Germaine Necker or Madame de Staël (1766-1817) will join us on our journey. After all, her De l’Allemagne (1810) is an unparalleled defence of how enthusiasm, wisdom, and sensibility go together.

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“Art can speak to what falls outside theory, and it can also embody felt ideas.”

Siri Hustvedt, defending the integration of emotional patterns and affects in the art sciences in A Woman Looking at Men looking at Women.

SUMMARY: This article attempts to delineate and plot the contours of the intercultural contributions of Gerasim Lebedev in a linguistic-cultural domain totally alien to him, in early-colonial Calcutta. It also seeks to contextualise the intense polysemy between 'microcosmic' personal and literary journeys and the 'cosmopolitan' acculturation that came with Lebedev's socio-cultural background and travels. Though, as will be seen in the essay, Lebedev's path-breaking maverick effort was largely a shot in the dark, his achievement is seen, in almost the entire theatrical fraternity in West Bengal and Bangladesh, in terms that can be described as larger than life. The essay will seek to understand the extent to which Lebedev's personal and professional choices reflected deep cross-cultural sympathies, thus making him an enthusiast with a difference.

Emotions that differ on the approach-avoidance dimension are thought to have different functions. Based
on the motivational dimensional model of affect, we expected high-approach tendency (and not valence)

to facilitate sports performance in a gaming context. Moreover, we expected the influence of high-
approach emotions on performance to be mediated by higher levels of cognitive and physiological

challenge as an approach-related response. To test these hypotheses, 241 men completed 5 matches of a
soccer video game FIFA 19. Before each match, approach tendencies and valence were experimentally
manipulated by showing films that elicit amusement, enthusiasm, sadness, anger, and neutral states.
Approach tendency, challenge/threat evaluations, cardiovascular responses, and game scores were

recorded. After watching enthusiastic and amusing videos, gamers displayed stronger approach tenden-
cies, and, in turn, improved performance, compared to negative emotions and neutral conditions.

Moreover, enthusiasm produced a stronger approach tendency and promoted better performance than
amusement. Elicitation of unpleasant emotions (anger and sadness) had no effect on approach tendencies
or gaming-outcomes relative to the neutral conditions. Across all conditions, gamers with higher levels
of cognitive and cardiovascular challenge achieved higher scores. These findings indicate that in a
gaming context performance is enhanced by pleasant emotions with high-approach tendencies.

In daily life of students there are many factors that play a vital role in their lives but the major aspect that plays a crucial role in building there personality and in increasing their academic capabilities is a teacher. A teacher is a role model if he/she is attentive towards student’s academic growth and gives equally importance to their personal growth. This study conducted teacher’s social behavior related with student’s personality and teacher’s performance related with student’s academics. Multiple sampling designs including stratified random sampling and cluster random sampling are used; a sample of 300 was selected from students of APWA College, Queen Mary College and Kinnaird College belonging to different socio economic status. A cross sectional study using structured questionnaire was carried out including basic information. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses were carried out on the data collected. The findings demonstrated that out of 300 respondents 212 ...

In this text, the history of phenomenological research on learning is synthesized and brought forward into the areas of existential learning, the development of enthusiasm about learning (from childhood through adulthood), and paradigmatic creative experience. Original research findings are derived using the Giorgi method of descriptive phenomenological analysis in psychology. The results, structural and eidetic in nature, are then integrated from a holistic developmental viewpoint: that of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT). An evolving developmental partnership between learning and creativity emerges as the proper conceptual frame for considering optimal growth and the relative maturity of situated becoming oneself (i.e., the process of self-cultivation). The resulting perspective is supported by cutting edge trends in neuroscience and related to pedagogy and education.

Discusses concepts of the "Schwärmer" (enthusiast) in German late Enlightenment and Romanticism.

It starts with a reconstruction of the "Schwärmerdebatte" (debate on enthusiasm) which was launched in 1776 in Wieland's journal "Teutscher Merkur", then shows the much more complicated image of the Schwärmer which was painted in fictional texts of the late Enlightenment (e.g. Goethe's "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers", Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's "Eduard Allwills Papiere", Karl Philipp Moritz's "Anton Reiser", Rousseau's "Les Reveries du Promeneur solitaire", Friedrich Schiller's "Der Geisterseher", Ludwig Tieck's "William Lovell", Voltaire's "Candide", Johann Carl Wezel's "Belphegor", Wieland's "Don Sylvio von Rosalva" and "Geschichte des Agathon", and others). The last chapter follows the gradual rehabilitation of the Schwärmer in Goethe's "Lehrjahren", Hölderlin's "Hyperion", Friedrich Schlegel's "Lucinde" and Novalis's "Heinrich von Ofterdingen".

Throughout the nineteenth century, Maskilic journals increased their publication of anti-Hasidic satires. From the eighteen-sixties onward, this literature came primarily as a response to the revival in the publishing of Hasidic hagiography and to the spread of Hasidism into new territory. To this point, no complete review or even general survey has been performed on this extensive polemical literature, despite the fact that it has much to teach us about Hasidism and the Haskalah in those years. We are not speaking of an insignificant bibliographical lacuna, but of a disregard for an entire field of research which would shed light not only on a forgotten chapter of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature but also on an important chapter in the relationships between Maskilim and Hasidim in that period and the genesis and development of the different streams of Hasidism. This Maskilic literature intended to do more than eradicate Hasidism; it aimed to strengthen the self-consciousness of the individual Maskilim who found themselves alone in Hasidic territory. Paradoxically, the literature documented the very movement it intended to eradicate from the world. The distorted reflection displayed in the anti-Hasidic literature does more than present a caricature of its subject -- it conceals hitherto unknown elements about the nature and development of the Hasidic movement. The present article deals with one such case, a satire on Bratslav Hasidism from 1863, which has at its core a Maskilic satirical text written by Yehiel Meller on pilgrimage to the grave of R. Nahman of Bratslav in Uman.





כתבי עת של משכילים לאורך המאה התשע עשרה הרבו לפרסם סאטירות בגנותה של החסידות. משנות הששים ואילך באה ספרות זו בעיקר כתגובה להתעוררות הדפסת ספרות השבחים החסידית ולהתפשטות החסידות במרחבים חדשים. לא קיימת עד עתה סקירה שלימה, ואף לא מיפוי כללי, של אותה ספרות פולמוסית ענפה, על אף שיש בה ללמד הרבה על דרכי החסידות וההשכלה באותן שנים.  לא מדובר רק בחסרון ביבליוגרפי שאין לו משמעות, אלא בהתעלמות משדה מחקר רב עניין שעשוי להאיר לא רק על פרק נשכח בספרות עברית ויידיש החדשה אלא גם על פרק חשוב ביחסים בין משכילים לחסידים באותה תקופה, ועל דרכי צמיחתם, פיצולם והתפתחותם של זרמים שונים בחסידות. הייתה זו ספרות שיותר מאשר נועדה לבער את החסידות נועדה לחזק את תודעתם העצמית של המשכילים הבודדים במרחבים החסידיים; ספרות שבאופן פרדוקסלי תיעדה תנועה אותה חפצו לבער מן העולם. הבבואה המעוותת בה התהדרה הסאטירה האנטי חסידית לא רק הציגה דימוי – אלא טומנת בחובה הצבעה על אלמנטים חדשים ועל התפתחויות בחסידות. במקרה אחד ממין זה הנוגע לחסידות ברסלב בשנות השישים של המאה התשע עשרה עוסק המאמר. שלפנינו - שעיקרו מהדורה של טקסט משכילי שכתב יחיאל מלר - בשנת 1863 - על העלייה לקבר ר' נחמן מברסלב באומן
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In daily life of students there are many factors that play a vital role in their lives but the major aspect that plays a crucial role in building there personality and in increasing their academic capabilities is a teacher. A teacher is a role model if he/she is attentive towards student’s academic growth and gives equally importance to their personal growth. This study conducted teacher’s social behavior related with student’s personality and teacher’s performance related with student’s academics. Multiple sampling designs including stratified random sampling and cluster random sampling are used; a sample of 300 was selected from students of APWA College, Queen Mary College and Kinnaird College belonging to different socio economic status. A cross sectional study using structured questionnaire was carried out including basic information. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses were carried out on the data collected. The findings demonstrated that out of 300 respondents 212 ...

The paper revisits Seneca’s endorsement of wine-drinking as a remedy for mental anxiety in De Tranquilitate Animi (17.4-12). Although this locus has been often interpreted as Seneca’s endorsement of Platonic enthusiasm, we argue that Seneca does not deviate from the Stoic rejection of drunkenness (e.g. Ep. 83.9). In fact, a closer reading of the relevant Platonic texts reveals that Plato opposed physical drunkenness as much as the Stoics did. According to Plato, especially in Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates in the Symposium (220a), the philosopher may appear drunk but can never be drunk. In his footsteps, Seneca, appreciates actual wine as a means of inducing or maintaining a higher state of consciousness, a state of hyper-reality that is crucial for achieving philosophical breakthroughs. Seneca’s De Otio offers additional evidence towards this understanding of the role of wine in achieving philosophical enthusiasm.

This paper studies the Malayalam film Lal Salaam (Red Salute, dir. Venu Nagavally, 1990) to locate within its narrative the elaboration of a rupture in the flow or circulation of enthusiasm in the region of Kerala, a rupture that figuratively depicts a momentous transition in the socio-political or ideological history of the region.

Waarin verschilt een enthousiaste medewerker van een gewone medewerker? En is enthousiasme eigenlijk GOED?

Van 2003 tot 2004 heb ik als nuttige invulling van een soort sabbatsjaar - nadat mijn vrouw en ik vanuit Londen verhuisd waren naar Nederland - voltijd Wijsbegeerte gestudeerd aan Universiteit Utrecht.
Ik was 38, zat met veel plezier tussen de jeugdige intellectuelen in de collegebanken en heb zelfs een paar tentamens gehaald en ook de nodige papers geschreven.
Als persoonlijke afsluiting van deze periode heb ik in april 2004 voor mezelf dit essay geschreven, dat ik als een van de belangrijkste wapenfeiten in mijn schrijversleven beschouw. Het gaat over een onderwerp waarover ik vooral na het ‘mislukken’ van mijn studie Bedrijfskunde op Nijenrode en de periode daarna vaak nagedacht heb: enthousiasme. Na de afgebroken studie ging ik enkele jaren in het familiebedrijf werken, maar natuurlijk was ik in die periode ook wel eens aan het nadenken over ergens anders solliciteren en het leven daarna. In die tijd stonden de kranten vol met personeelsadvertenties waarin als belangrijkste vereiste genoemd werd dat je enthousiast moest zijn: ‘Enthousiaste medewerker gevraagd!’
Wat is toch een enthousiaste medewerker? vroeg ik me dikwijls af. 
In 2004, na een jaar filosofie gestudeerd te hebben, kon ik op deze vraag eindelijk een antwoord formuleren, in de vorm van dit essay. In die tijd woedde onder minister-president Balkenende ook de discussie over normen en waarden, daarnaar verwijst de ondertitel.
Het essay is met het jeugdige enthousiasme van een aanstormend filosoof en wereldverbeteraar geschreven. Enkele zinnen, over het christendom bijvoorbeeld, zou ik nu anders of met iets meer nuance geformuleerd hebben. Maar het antwoord op de vraag naar het hoe en waarom van enthousiasme houdt me nog steeds bezig.

This article uses resources from the theology of Christoph Blumhardt to argue that Luther was mistaken in identifying a necessary theological connection between ‘enthusiastic’ views of the Spirit and naive anthropology. It demonstrates that Blumhardt successfully combined an abiding concern over the problem of spiritual self-deception together with a pneumatology that affirmed the importance of affective experience of the Spirit not mediated exclusively by the proclaimed Word of Scripture, through a conviction that the most reliable sign of the Spirit's activity is ‘negative’, in suffering and visceral encounter with divine judgement, in the first instance. This critical ‘enthusiasm’ helps explain Blumhardt's singular critique of the nationalistic ‘Spirit of August’ from the start of World War I.

This is an essay on eighteenth-century literary theory and on Samuel Johnson's novel THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA (1759). Johnson's literary theory as reflected in RASSELAS is examined in the light of other pronouncements on poetics by this author, and of aesthetic reflection in this period. Johnson's relationships both with classicism and with pre-Romanticism resist interpretations which disregard the tension between the author's lucidity and his dogmatism. The paper addresses the issue of the interpretation of authorial levels of intentionality, and of the traces they leave on the textual structure. In the last analysis, two different modes of textual coherence are found in Johnson's work, which result from the author's ideological and emotional conflicts.

Translation of Andrei Platonov's 1937 article, "Pushkin and Gorky," part of Pushkin Review's 2019 cluster of articles and translations from Platonov and Mikhail Lifshitz's writings on the Russian national poet, Aleksandr Pushkin, during the 1937 Pushkin Jubilee.

This book examines the nature and significance of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment England. In the early modern period, the term ‘enthusiasm’ was a smear word used to discredit the dissenters of the radical Reformation as dangerous religious fanatics. In England, the term gained prominence from the Civil War period and throughout the eighteenth century. Anglican ministers and the proponents of the Enlightenment used it more widely against Paracelsian chemists, experimental philosophers, religious dissenters and divines, astrologers or anyone claiming superior knowledge. As a result, our understanding of enthusiasm is largely influenced by the hostile discourse of Augustan moralist and early Enlighteners. But who exactly were these enthusiasts? What did they believe in, how did they operate as a community and what impact did they have on their contemporaries? This book aims to answer these questions by concentrating on the notorious case of the French Prophets. It demonstrates how the understanding of enthusiasm evolved around 1700, designating anything from a religious fanaticism to a social epidemic and even a bodily disease. It offers the first comprehensive approach to enthusiasm, looking at this multifarious issue from a successively social, religious, cultural, political and medical perspective. Based on extensive archival research, it sheds new light on the reality of enthusiasm away from the hostility of Enlightenment discourse.

In daily life of students there are many factors that play a vital role in their lives but the major aspect that plays a crucial role in building there personality and in increasing their academic capabilities is a teacher. A teacher is a role model if he/she is attentive towards student’s academic growth and gives equally importance to their personal growth. This study conducted teacher’s social behavior related with student’s personality and teacher’s performance related with student’s academics. Multiple sampling designs including stratified random sampling and cluster random sampling are used; a sample of 300 was selected from students of APWA College, Queen Mary College and Kinnaird College belonging to different socio economic status. A cross sectional study using structured questionnaire was carried out including basic information. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses were carried out on the data collected. The findings demonstrated that out of 300 respondents 212 ...

Histories of Early Modern religion in Europe typically contrast the activities of ordained theologians with those of laity. The thought and writings of the former usually constitute " theology " and those of the latter " piety. " The result has long been a divided history. Confessional church historians have written histories that were essentially genealogies of (male) officer holders, while scholars of folklore, culture or literature analyzed the contributions of laity. Since the so-called cultural turn, the contributions of laity as organizers, transmitters and patrons of Early Modern religious movements are being recognized. What has been less studied are the intellectual achievements of laity, many of whom possessed deep knowledge of theology, history, and ancient languages and played important roles in Early Modern religious history. This article provides an overview of the main issues and the development of lay theology in the period and argues for increased study of the phenomenon.

(proofs version) I characterize and discuss Kant’s account of
enthusiasm (Enthusiasm / Enthusiasmus) in his early, middle, and late publications as well as in his lecture notes. Kant’s reflections on enthusiasm do not amount to a mere afterthought. While not at the center of his epistemology, aesthetics, or ethics, the concept of enthusiasm was clearly of philosophical interest to Kant over a period spanning several decades.

Students and colleagues, please feel free to request a courtesy pdf of this essay ([email protected]).

This article develops a Coleridgean theory of two main forms of mystical experience occurring at what Coleridge called the poles of our 'Mental Powers', at 'Sense' and 'Reason'. While the article presents a theory of mystical experience as actually or in principle occurrent (depending on the individual) at the perimeter of human experience, it also emphasizes Coleridge's cautions against confusing personal idiosyncrasy for spiritual reality. Coleridge's own position on noetic and on sensual contemplation is argued to develop from his Plotinian reading of and reaction against Kant's philosophy of experience and the limits of knowledge. I show how Coleridge proposes 'Reason' as the space of truth, law, and 'living powers' on the objective side, and of noetic, pure contemplation on the subjective side. Consistent with his polar philosophy, I then develop a theory of what I call inchoate contemplation, occurring at the level of 'Sense', infusing, for some, a bright joy into everyday perception when experienced with extraordinary intensity,  but which may also, especially when exacerbated in fancy, bring darkness and dread. Gentler and more usual than either extreme are the moments of secular grace in nature and quotidian life.

This is a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of 19th Century Christian Thought. It traces theological appeals to the category of 'religious experience' in 19th century theology from Schleiermacher to William James. Figures discussed include Schleiermacher, Coleridge, Bushnell, the Erlangen School, Methodist Holiness theologian Phoebe Palmer, Christoph Blumhardt, and James. The chapter contextualizes these theological appeals to 'experience' in light of the long history of Protestant debates over 'enthusiasm' and subjective experience as well as the search for new foundations for theology after the Enlightenment. Overall, it demonstrates the lasting and often underestimated importance of Pietistic and 'enthusiastic' theologies in 19th century Christian theology as both a resource and a foil for new developments.

Nach einem Abriß zur Begriffsgeschichte von Schwärmerei/Enthusiasmus untersucht der Aufsatz die Schwärmerdebatte der deutschen Spätaufklärung und ihre Fortführung in Tiecks Roman "William Lovell" (1795/6). Im theoretischen Diskurs wie im literarischen Text erweist sich der Schwärmer als Prüfstein, an dem die epistemologischen, moralphilosophischen und anthropologischen Legitimationsdefizite der Aufklärung im letzten Viertel des 18. Jahrhunderts kenntlich werden.

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)

Believers are people who make earning the approval of Allah the ultimate purpose of their lives and strive hard for this cause. In the Qur’an, Allah calls them the ones who strive with their properties and their lives in the cause of Allah. 1 Because they have devoted their lives to Allah and are willing to offer everything they have, material and otherwise, for the pleasure of Allah and Paradise, believers have a very important attribute that enables them to commit themselves and to say under the most trying circumstances: "Sufficient for us is Allah."2 It is their eagerness to earn the approval of Allah.

The zeal granted by faith is a power that increases one’s physical and mental capacity, enabling him to lead every moment of his life in the best and most productive way. This enthusiasm consequential to love of Allah provides a person with spiritual power, great strength and resistance, a steel-like will and courage. Through spiritual power believers overcome every difficulty and continue to strive hard for Allah whatever the conditions and circumstances may be.

This book discusses the zeal of believers that continues to increase until the end of their lives. Its purpose is to encourage all Muslims to be more zealous by showing how great a blessing zeal is as an attribute which strengthens believers. The reader will understand the important secret that makes one successful even under the most difficult conditions. Furthermore, he will learn of the bounties that have been promised to those who never lose their zeal and who meet difficulties by putting their trust in Allah. This book encourages people to comply with His directive:

"Hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a garden [i.e., Paradise] as wide as the heavens and earth."3

An additional aim is to motivate those who merely follow a middle course when living the principles of Islam and feel satisfied with this rather than striving to be among the forerunners.

In "De l’Allemagne", Mme de Staël develops a sophisticated philosophical psychology that centers not on reason, but imagination. She does this by bringing French Enlightenment philosophy, particularly Rousseau and Diderot, into dialogue with German thinkers, including Kant and Herder. For Mme de Staël, imagination transcends the epistemic limits of sensibility and reason by incorporating sentiment.

"Own Your Life: Create as You Go" outlines Parm Sran's journey of life transformation. From a person suffering from clinical depression, in constant denial of her condition, suffering from self-limiting beliefs, past regrets, anger, guilt and relationship conflicts to her transformation into a person full of positive energy, enthusiasm, optimism and leading an exemplary life full of joy and peace, is quite a journey, worth knowing. Parm Sran opines that we are spiritual beings having the power to change and create new realities. She points out that people we meet, places we go, and books we read change our mindsets. To have better mental health, healthier relationships, and worthwhile life, we must take care of our inner worlds before we start sorting out the outer world. The external world starts changing automatically as we start making changes within ourselves. This fact comes out very prominently in her works.

Skaz, an experimental narrative form popular in the early Soviet years, has been defined by its orientation toward orality and the voice of a lower‐class other. Skaz's most widely read practitioner, Mikhail Zoshchenko claimed to speak on behalf of proletarian writers, who, according to revolutionary vanguardist theory, could not yet speak for themselves. Sympathetic and antagonistic critics alike have presented Zoshchenko as a pessimist hostilely inclined to the linguistic consciousnesses depicted in his fiction and to the revolutionary project as a whole. In this article, skaz is reconsidered in relation to its roots in enthusiastic aesthetics and politics, an ancient philosophical tradition which since became central to the analysis of feeling and class in revolutionary societies. Following the Russian Revolution, populist intellectuals “spoke in the tongues” of the lower‐class other in an attempt to step outside their own subjective vantage points. The result was a dialectic made up of the “illusory” objectification of the revolutionary subject and a reciprocal defamiliarizing self‐objectification through this imagined consciousness. The enthusiastic aesthetics of skaz do not enable their object to speak, but they do facilitate a movement toward it. This article makes this case using the example of Zoshchenko's 1927 “Simplicity of Soul,” a prose miniature about Soviet shoving framed by the narrator's recollections of remarks on the matter made by members of a so‐called “Negro‐Operetta.” The anecdote originates in a real feuilleton recounting the impressions of the Chocolate Kiddies, an African‐American jazz ensemble that toured the Soviet Union in 1926. Read alongside Soviet reviews of the Chocolate Kiddies, the story is revealed to be a nuanced critical response to the misguided, racist, and, at the same time, well‐meaning internationalist enthusiasm that defined the Soviet response to jazz. Zoshchenko's point in exploring the crude objectifications which obscured Soviet critics' reading of this emancipatory, transnational art form is to articulate–and offer a qualified defense of–the contingent, illusory, and problematic images produced by his own enthusiastic performances of proletarian voice.

Die Erfahrung des Verlusts der festen Bezugsquelle "Gott" ist vor allem ein affektives Ereignis, das sich deutlichsten im Verschwindens des "Enthusiasmus" bekundet - bedeutet dieser aus dem Altgriechischen entlehnte Begriff doch so viel wie "Gotterfülltheit" (vgl. entheos). Nietzsches Diktum "Gott ist todt" - mitsamt dem wichtigen Zusatz: "Gott bleibt todt" - ist nicht von ungefähr der einprägsamste Ausdruck für jene massive Erfahrung der Enthusiasmusdeprivation. Vom "unglücklichen Bewusstsein" bis zum "Nihilismus" reicht das Spektrum negativ-affektiver Reaktionen: was Wunder, wenn der Referent "Gott" lange Zeit als einziger Bezugspunkt für ein Vom-Innersten-bis-ins-Äußerste-Affiziertsein geltend gemacht wurde? Das Christentum hat diesen seinen Gott mit allen Mitteln bis hin zur physischen Gewalt als einzig legitime Enthusiasmusquelle verteidigt-inklusive der Leugnung, dass es sich beim Enthusiasmus tatsächlich um "Gotterfülltheit" handeln kann: Diese Transzendenzerfahrung musste aus theologischen Gründen für die Propheten reserviert bleiben. Woher kann also der Enthusiasmus überhaupt noch kommen, wenn selbst dieser unergründliche Schöpfergott gestorben ist? Anders gefragt: Welche Fülle an alternativen Affizierungsquellen kann sich nun wieder zeigen?

La redécouverte des Oracles sibyllins en Occident au milieu du 16e siècle a donné lieu à des controverses diverses et insoupçonnées. Celles-ci portaient sur l’origine de ces textes, leur pertinence pour l’édification du croyant et leur statut théologique, en particulier vis-à-vis de la Révélation biblique. Après un bref survol de ces débats, l’article aborde le traitement que John Twysden, un auteur méconnu du 17e siècle, a réservé à cette collection de textes dans un traité visant, d’une part, à défendre les Oracles des attaques qu’ils subissaient de la part de théologiens qui leur étaient hostiles et, d’autre part, à réfléchir à l’épineuse question de la source d’inspiration des sibylles. Le regard de Twysden est original dans la mesure où il émane non d’un théologien professionnel, mais d’un médecin, mathématicien et astronome, passionné de théologie. De ce point de vue, Twysden anticipe les approches de John Floyer (1649-1734) et William Whiston (1667-1752), deux hommes de science également versés dans les questions religieuses et dont les dissertations sur les Oracles sibyllins feront l’objet d’études ultérieures.

L’articolo intende analizzare la tesi di dottorato del Jakobiner Adam Lux (1765-1793), Enthusiasmus. Lo scritto si rivela un prezioso tassello storiografico che arricchisce il dibattito attorno alla cangiante natura del tardo Illuminismo europeo e, più nello specifico, del periodo della Spätaufklärung. L’analisi ci permette infatti di mettere in risalto la forte permeabilità dei contesti culturali tedeschi di quegli anni e la presenza di quei «transfert culturali» che sarebbero stati fondamentali per la nascita delle correnti rivoluzionari di fine secolo. È nel concetto di «entusiasmo universale» elaborato da Lux che si possono così rintracciare non solo le ovvie influenze dell’Illuminismo francese dei philosophes e degli encyclopédistes, ma anche quelle, altresì fondamentali nella cultura illuministica, di lontane tradizioni religiose. Per queste ragioni, oltre a rivestire un certo peso politologico (soprattutto se messo in prospettiva con l’esperienza rivoluzionaria), l’Enthusiasmus offre le chiavi per comprendere in che modo potesse pensare un giovane Spätaufklärer cresciuto in un contesto quanto mai vivo e ricco delle più disparate suggestioni culturali.